The Joy of Music and Movement

This half-term has been so much fun, as students have worked on honing their performance skills, as well as learning folk dances from different countries and cultures.

The children in Grade 1 have been learning ‘The Rakes of Mallow’, a folk dance from Ireland. They had to really work together as an ensemble to keep the movements with the music (played by traditional Irish instruments), and they even mastered performing it without any calls.

Students in Grades 2-6 have been learning about tinikling, a style of folk dance from the Philippines. Ms. Denise even came into the classes to share her experiences of learning tinikling as a child, and to show students some of the basic steps. The students then choreographed their own tinikling performances in groups, using their knowledge of musical forms, to put together a performance for their peers. It has been wonderful to see them learning these new skills and combining them all together to create a final performance, and we had a lot of fun in the process.

The Casa Kindergarten students did their first vocal performance, singing ‘Shake the Papaya’ for the NCFA. The students worked so hard in preparing their performance, and represented our school wonderfully. They also created their first written compositions this month, which were then performed on instruments. It has been such a fun and creative month in Music!